The ballroom replacing the White House East Wing will share Donald Trump’s name.
The $300 million project has yet to receive a formal designation, but it is already being referred to as the “The President Donald J. Trump Ballroom,” a moniker that will likely stick, senior administration officials told ABC News Friday.
Practically every detail that has emerged about the ballroom—and the East Wing’s complete destruction this week—has been uncovered by media outlets that refused to take the administration’s plan at face value.
After promising Americans in July that his ballroom proposal would “be near but not touching” the historic building, Trump plowed ahead without prerequisite approval from the National Capital Planning Commission (which has been closed since the government shutdown began earlier this month) and without the express permission of Congress.
The project’s price tag also inexplicably grew by 50 percent over the last week. What Trump had pitched as a $200 million project was instead referred to this week as a $300 million development plan that the White House suggested would be funded, in part, by some of the country’s wealthiest families and biggest corporations, including the likes of Apple, Google, Amazon, Microsoft, and Meta.
Government officials are still trying to ascertain whether Trump’s sudden, unauthorized decision to demolish the White House was legal, but at least two Americans have already opted to sue him over it in an attempt to suspend the construction.
The White House’s partial destruction is, ultimately, another illustration that the country’s constitutional system of checks and balances has eroded. The international real estate mogul’s desire to destroy the government—and with it, the architectural face of American democracy—has received practically zero pushback from his allies in Congress, who appear all too willing to sit back as Trump courts billionaires to fund his golden banquet hall.
Resisting Trump’s drafts for the East Wing would require someone in power to actually hold the president accountable. But his desire to destroy and redevelop the White House as he sees fit should come as no surprise, since he’s never appeared to be a fan of the national symbol. During his first term, Trump reportedly called the White House “a dump” (an allegation that he has publicly refuted) and has spent no small part of his second term living and dining at his own properties rather than the executive mansion.
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